Ascendance receives letters of intent for 245 Atea hybrid eVTOLs from the US, Asia and Europe

Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies has received let­ters of intent from the US, Asia and Europe for 245 five-seat Atea eVTOLs with patent­ed mod­u­lar hybrid propul­sion sys­tem that will go into pro­duc­tion in 2025 and have a range of 400km.

Ascen­dance unveiled ATEA at the end of last year, and cur­rent­ly has around 50 employ­ees, which are expect­ed to dou­ble with new facil­i­ties at the Muret-Lherm air­field, as well as its next full-scale pro­to­type test cam­paign, sched­uled for next year. Demon­stra­tion flights will be held in Paris dur­ing the 2024 Olympics.

Ascen­dance co-founder and CEO Jean-Christophe Lam­bert said: “Our project to decar­bonise avi­a­tion had to be anchored in real­i­ty, so we built Atea around the cor­ner­stones of our indus­try, which include safe­ty, effi­cien­cy, resilience, com­fort and cost effec­tive­ness.

“These imper­a­tives are at the heart of our cus­tomers’ demands and guide our inno­va­tions. With Atea, we can now offer our cus­tomers an eas­i­er tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon fleet, with high-per­for­mance, com­pet­i­tive air­craft avail­able at very short notice.”

PhilJets Group head of sales & mar­ket­ing Geof­froy Cahen remarked: “Ascen­dance’s pro­pos­al is con­clu­sive, offer­ing a car­bon-free air­craft adapt­ed to a wide range of routes, uses and needs, which is what we are look­ing for in the high­ly com­pet­i­tive and con­stant­ly chang­ing mar­ket in which we oper­ate.

“We serve routes across the 7,000-island Philip­pine arch­i­pel­ago, from char­ter flights to tourist flights, med­ical evac­u­a­tions, and on-site pro­fes­sion­al trans­porta­tion and Ascen­dance was will­ing to include us in the devel­op­ment process.”

Fly­Share chair­man James Hop­kins added: “Fly­Share is excit­ed to be the first FAA Part 135 car­ri­er to deploy the Ascen­dance Atea in the USA, with its supe­ri­or range, speed, and load capac­i­ty.

“We are impressed with Ascendance’s pow­er plant tech­ni­cal deci­sions and abil­i­ty to incre­men­tal­ly improve the emis­sions pro­file over the first few years of its intro­duc­tion into ser­vice.”

Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies is mak­ing steady progress towards cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and entry of its air­craft into ser­vice, hav­ing estab­lished a good work­ing part­ner­ship with buy­ers.

Ascen­dance co-founder and CCO Thibault Bal­divia con­tin­ued: “Atea’s per­for­mances and assets have struck a chord with these cus­tomers, as they offer a tai­lor-made response to their oper­a­tional needs.

“We are now work­ing close­ly with future users to ensure that the air­craft is per­fect­ly adapt­ed to their mar­kets, cus­tomers and busi­ness mod­els.”

In Feb­ru­ary, Yugo Glob­al Indus­tries signed a con­tract with Ascen­dance to pur­chase 18 ATEA air­crafts.